


Caged

by Riona



Category: Deltarune (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 05:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16550138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riona/pseuds/Riona
Summary: Whose soul is this in your chest? Why won't it leave you alone? How can you stop it?





	Caged

At night, when your body lets its guard down, when you’re able to force your hand between your ribs, you’ll sometimes rip out your soul. A bad habit you developed as a kid and you’ve never been able to shake.

Does it work with someone else’s soul? Can you keep control of your body for long enough to manage it?

It’s the only hope you have.

-

You have to do it while you’re half-asleep, while the connection between your mind and your body is hazy enough for you to seize control of it. You pull out the soul and hurl it into the birdcage, and you breathe for a moment, _free_.

But something’s wrong. You can feel that emptiness in your chest you’re left with when you pull out your own soul. But you’ve only pulled out the stranger; _your_ soul should still be in there.

Do you still have a soul of your own?

You search for it inside your chest. Heart and lungs and blood and bone. But the only soul you can see is the one battering itself against the birdcage, silently straining to force itself back into you.

You used to have one; you know you did. You needed to get away from it sometimes, when you were feeling too much, but you never wanted it _gone_. What happened to it?

Maybe you just keep missing it. Maybe you just have to keep looking.

Maybe it isn’t there at all.

Are you real?

-

The soul has been trying to escape ceaselessly, for hours. If you could speak, you’d ask what it wants.

It wants you; that’s clear enough. Why?

Does it want to use your body to hurt people? But it’s had plenty of opportunities to do that, and it never seems to try. It doesn’t seem _violent_. It hasn’t even done anything cruel.

To anyone but you, at least.

Why steal someone’s body and use it to be _nice?_ Is someone punishing you for not being good enough? You’re not making good enough use of your body, so it’s been confiscated and given to someone else?

You take your knife and carve your question into your brother’s bedsheet. _WHY_

Can it see what you’re doing when it’s in the birdcage?

It’ll have escaped somehow by the morning; it’ll be in you again. It’s what always happened when you caged your own soul. You’ve tried to resist sleeping before; the night stretches out endlessly, the time never passes, and eventually you’re worn out, you have to sleep. And you’ll wake, and your body will be someone else’s.

You could leave the message exposed. But Mom might see.

You cover it up with the blankets. The soul is thorough, it wants to look at everything, it wants to talk to everyone. For now, you’re counting on that.

Does it not have a body of its own? Just a stray soul, unable to experience the world by itself? Is that why it wants yours?

-

It takes you to your brother’s bed first thing in the morning. Throws back the covers, stands looking for a moment at the _WHY_.

It must have seen you write it in the night. There was no hesitation. It _knew_ the message was there. It’s telling you that it’s seen.

It points at the _WHY_ twice, then lifts up your pillow and points to the knife underneath it. Covers them both up. Squiggles your finger across your palm like it’s pretending to write.

It’s a strange thrill.

It’s trying to _communicate_ with you.

You assumed it didn’t care about you. It’s never shown any sign of remorse for intruding on someone else’s life, never even shown any awareness that that was what it was doing. But it’s recognised that you’re talking to it, and it’s trying to say _something_ back.

Asking why you didn’t use a pen, maybe.

A pen would probably have made more sense. But you didn’t have a pen in this room; you had a knife, for reasons that really aren’t its business. And you didn’t want to leave the soul where you couldn’t keep an eye on it.

You don’t have control of your body, of course, so how are you supposed to communicate that?

It stands there for a moment, maybe waiting for the response you can’t give, and then it opens your door and walks out into a new day you’re not going to have any say in.

-

The soul fought, the first night, when you ripped it out. Just as your own soul always did.

This time it comes up eagerly to meet your fingers.

You stand for a moment with it in the palm of your hand. Maybe it’s decided to free you. Maybe it’ll leave you alone.

You open your bedroom door and gesture towards it with your free hand.

The soul darts left and right on your palm a few times. Feels like a no.

You point at your brother’s bed. The message is still covered up, but you figure it’ll get your meaning across.

The soul pauses, then starts moving towards your chest, and you quickly catch it, clasp it in both hands. It might not be that sinister; it might just need your body so it can give you an answer. But answers can wait. For now, you’re free.

Why was it so happy to be removed, if it doesn’t want to leave?

Maybe it just wants to see what you’ll do.

It’s more unsettling, somehow, than the thought that it’s here to hurt you. It’s not trying to hurt you; it just doesn’t care. It just wants to see what you’ll do.

You stay awake as long as you can. Reading, messing around on your brother’s computer, trying not to think, as the night goes on and on and on. Keeping the soul held in your fist, struggling against your fingers, as a reminder of what you’ll lose when you fall asleep.

-

In the morning, it breathes on the mirror in the hall and writes with a finger. _I’m sorry_.

And then _it_ forces your hand into your chest, it pulls _itself_ out, and you look around wildly to make sure Mom hasn’t seen.

You look back at the mirror. It’s only you, you tell yourself. For this moment, at least, it’s only you.

You lean forward, the soul in your palm, and write in the already-fading condensation. _Then leave me alone_.

It darts back into you while you’re writing the last letter, while you’re distracted, and you should have held on harder. You’d have had a chance to walk around in daylight, to spend time with your friends as yourself.

(It gave you friends. Should you be grateful for that?)

Maybe it’ll give you another chance to take control, but it doesn’t seem likely, not now that it knows you’ll be on your guard.

It circles _I’m sorry_ , then breathes over your words and writes its own. _I have to know how this ends_.

How this ends? How what ends?

But it sets out for your school without giving you a chance to ask.

It’s sorry, apparently. Just not sorry enough to stop.


End file.
